"Seeing race is not the problem. The negative messages we have attached to different races, for example the biological, culturally deficient, or superior beliefs, present significant issues. In order to have cross-racial, cross-cultural unity, we have to acknowledge the complex impact of race in each other’s lives. But, first, when we embrace humility and empathy, we can truly hear, learn, and trust across race." Dr. Sam Kline is one woman who will make you think. As an educated women of color, she has suffered from early childhood, through adulthood, for simply being black and wanting the freedoms so freely given to others.
As a result of her childhood, or perhaps because it was her life purpose, Sam’s core truth is that freedom is a natural birth right we all possess. In this powerful podcast Sam talks about wanting to commit suicide in 5th grade and eventually turning things around so that now she is a gift to all who meet her, bringing her message of freedom.
More than once she says “Thinking is free.” She calls us all to look at and question everything. Questioning and seeing things from a variety of perspectives creates true freedom according to Sam and I can see the truth in her words. To be free, to question, and not to be held down by small mindedness, by ignorance, or by racism, creates an openness to the gift of diversity, to appreciation of differences, and to the realization that we all have so many gifts to offer each other but only when we are open to seeing and then receiving. Don’t miss this podcast, our longest one to date and worth every second.